This Conan game was to have been released exclusively for the Bally Astrocade, an impressive but obscure console competitor to the Atari 2600. The Astrocade had especially colorful graphics, good sound, and was programmable, but it reputedly suffered from a serious design flaw that could cause the system to overheat without much trouble.
What survives of the game is an intriguing combat arena in which the player controls Conan as he battles various monsters. The player must move Conan, push a button to switch his direction, and use the paddle-knob on the Astrocade controller to swing his sword up and down. As Conan defeats monsters, he replenishes and gains stamina and other RPG stats and then moves on to greater challenges. Perhaps, if the game had been finished, Conan would have had a proper quest to complete or something to give the game just a bit more depth. As it is, with the blank play area and the bizarrely rendered creatures - which in a novel feature seem to be randomly assembled from individual parts - the game comes across as a bit abstract.
Bally Alley did an outstanding rundown of the Astrocade Conan, but to summarize, Astrocade Inc. began hyping Conan in 1981 as the "first 'real-time' dungeons and dragons video game and first to spin off from a movie." The company promised that players would be "exploring perilous dungeons, outwitting and slaying monsters, casting magic spells, confronting fearsome wizards...all without stopping the action to type in instructions."
Unfortunately, the company wasn't able to secure the Conan license (perhaps this was when Datasoft entered the picture?) and the game was retitled Quest for the Orb. Alas, Quest for the Orb wasn't finished and it doesn't appear that there are any surviving versions of it online. The Astrocade itself hung around until 1984 before ceasing production.
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